Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Scott Rothstein, who profiled my work last year on his excellent blog Art Found Out, has just published a short piece about my silhouette imagery for the online arts journal Hand/Eye. His article focuses particularly on the one-of-a-kind artist books, including the series Tall Tales. Scott's article, In Silhouette - Deborah Klein's diverse and eclectic paper art, can be readHERE.
The publication of the article is timely, as I have been invited to exhibit a selection of these and other book art in Biblio, the artist book section of this year's Clunes Booktownon the weekend of 3-4 May.

Over the past few weeks I've been doing a great deal of advance preparation, because on Friday my partner Shane Jones and I will be winging our way to London for a month. We are scheduled to return just three days before Booktown begins.

I've made four new zines for Booktown, using iPad apps as a basis for the layout and design. These are three of the four:

Monday, March 17, 2014

It wasn't about which political side you were on.
It was a protest against a government that was actually voted in by my fellow
Australians, a government that is in the process of destroying everything so
many of us still believe in. And so, so many of us were there yesterday: estimates
vary from 30,000 - 50,000. In the last three days similar marches have taken
place all over the country.

March in March began
with a rally outside the State Library of Victoria. Afterwards the crowd
marched from Swanston Street, turned left into Bourke Street and officially
ended on the steps of Parliament House. These are a very small selection of
around two hundred shots I took yesterday (including the shameless selfie of Shane and I directly below). We were both very proud to be there. Lately we'd been feeling deeply ashamed to be Australian.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Most of the past week has been spent hand colouring the edition, plus various proofs (Artist Proofs, APW Proofs, Presentation Proof, Viewing Proof, etc) of the linocut Jewel Beetle Woman. It was a satisfying, pleasurable process, despite being rather more time consuming than I'd anticipated. As a rule, I hand colour with watercolours, but for the first time ever, I used pigmented drawing inks. The result was a far richer and more luminous surface.

Based on past experience, I was wary of accidental drips and as a preventative measure cut stencils for two of the high risk areas: the body and hair. The greens of the beetle's upper body and legs were applied without benefit of stencils, but fortunately there were no mishaps.

Today was a red letter day: the edition was delivered to the Australian Print Workshop, where it was numbered, titled, signed, dated and the relevant paperwork completed.

As always, it was great to catch up with the folk at the APW. I've really appreciated their enthusiasm and encouragement throughout this project, particularly Simon White, who so expertly printed Jewel BeetleWoman. I was delighted that APW Director Anne Virgo picked up on the influence of the artist-naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). It turns out that not only does Anne share my deep admiration for this artist, she actually owns one of her exquisite hand coloured woodcuts.

About me

I am a visual artist who makes paintings, drawings, prints and book art. In 2009 I founded Moth Woman Press, through which I publish my zines and limited edition books, beginning with ‘There was once… The collected fairy tales’, a small anthology of thirteen original stories illustrated with my prints, paintings and drawings. Currently I divide my time between Melbourne and Ballarat in South Western Victoria.